‘A car crash waiting to happen’ is how the Registered Nursing Home Association (RNHA) has described the government’s failure to ring-fence new funding for councils to spend on elderly care services, including 24-hour residential nursing care.

For more than a decade calls for ring-fencing of social care budgets have been made repeatedly by provider organisations. RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell said he was unsurprised at House of Commons research figures which showed that, despite previous government assurances that it was giving councils a ‘real terms’ increase to spend on social care by 2014-15, the fact that there was no ring-fencing of the cash means the money has been diverted elsewhere.

Mr Ursell said the figures show that since the coalition government came to power, as much as £1.3bn had already been removed from councils’ elderly care budgets.